The other night I had a text exchange with a very good friend. We were catching up, like we normally do. She had an emergency at home with her husband's health that fortunately worked out for the best. And we started talking about productivity and submitting material to various theatres.
She talked about how she was reframing rejections for herself. She had read an article that really helped her that talked about collecting rejections. She forwarded it to me and I read it. In the article, the author talks about how she decided instead of being bummed out by the number of literary rejections she was getting, she would now actively pursue her rejections. Because the more rejections she got, that meant the more she was putting herself out there.
My approach to submissions is to send stuff out and forget about it. When I get a letter of rejection, then I remember that I had submitted somewhere. I instantly detach. My friend keeps track of when she's supposed to hear back about something - that keeps her motivated. We have two completely separate approaches. But each approach works for us. For me, focusing on a rejection - or collecting one - means that I'm thinking about the submission and waiting for an answer. That would drive me personally crazy. I've got to be focused on the work ahead of me, regardless of the outcome. We chatted about our differences via text and I got a text back saying, "I wish I wasn't so ambitious."
Did my process of letting go of results mean I wasn't ambitious?
I had to think about that for a moment. I work hard and I compete on a professional level. I had my first professional staff job on a TV show this year. I'm working on a new play with my theatre company. I have a manager. I've been writing pilots. I am ambitious. But I'm not worried about the outcome. I'm worried about the work.
My friend says that it's not about the outcome, but it's about the opportunity. She really wants those opportunities. I agree. The opportunity to develop your work can only make it better. That's why I have my writer's group that I'm a part of. That's why I've run workshops for my playwrights group for the past three years. That's why I teach. I give myself as many opportunities to be in community with people and do the work. I'm not doing it on a nationally recognized level. I'm not doing it with a name brand attached. But I'm doing that work 24/7, 365 days a year.
That doesn't mean that what I'm doing is better. But I'm getting those development opportunities because I'm putting myself out there. I'm involved with Chalk Rep because of the writer's group. I had material to bring into the writer's group because I had just finished a play that I developed for eight months with Moving Arts last year and I needed a distraction - from everyone who said that one of the big development entities was going to develop that play because it was good and timely. NOT ONE DID. And if I had waited for that, I would have missed out on so much in this past year.
Would I have loved to have flown out to the O'Neill? Or been in Ojai? Or been presented and anointed at the Pacific Playwrights Festival or Humana like many of my friends and colleagues have been? Absolutely. It will be an honor when those things happen. But today, I go to rehearsal. I workshop this new play because I decided ten months ago that I needed to keep writing because I couldn't listen to those voices and get my hopes up. I needed to work on the next thing. And I did. And that got noticed - totally by my surprise. The leader of the writer's workshop got behind it. My work as an active participant for the six months before that where I didn't bring any work in because I was already working on something, but I showed up and listened to the new work being brought in - that work was getting recognized and I didn't even know it. I finished that play in February and gave it to the leader of the group, who loved it. They decided to do a workshop. Then they decided to invite me into their company. That was in April and May.
So if I had waited for those big opportunities, I would have missed out on this one. Now I'm a part of a theatre company that wanted me. That reached out to me and asked me to join. No other writers were asked. One other company member was brought in. I now have an artistic home. That means more to me than those national titles. And in fact, those national titles are in far closer reach because I now am associated with a recognized theatre company. I have legitimacy. I also have the security of having a home and knowing that anything I write will be read. Maybe not produced by them every time. But I will always have an opportunity to hear my work read out loud and workshopped.
That makes me a better writer. That makes me more competitive. So it's not about a lack of ambition, it's about a need to be driven by what I'm doing in the day to day - not in the distant future. It's about living in the now. My friend - who I love and respect - has her way of dealing with her career. And it's what gets her out of bed every morning and gets her excited to write. It's about the goal she sets for herself and she will find success on that path.
Not every way works for every person. That way would make me crazy. It's too goal-oriented and not process-oriented for me. It's about external validation, which I'm working on needing less. That doesn't mean that validation doesn't come. It means that I am detaching myself from it. The external validation will come because that's what happens when you do something and someone notices and likes it. It's a natural result of getting work out there. But I don't live and die by that praise or rejection. I keep going regardless of the good or the bad.
It doesn't mean that I'm not ambitious. That notion I do reject. I'm hella ambitious - because I'm curious. Because I want to problem solve. Because I want to see what happens when I sit down for the work.
My intention is to take a leap.
My intention is to take a leap.
My intention is to take a leap.
I am grateful for artistic debate.
I am grateful to know my process.
I am grateful that the work is getting done.
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